Born in Biloxi, Mississippi in 1966, Diane Ferrer has been interested in art from a young age when a portrait done in elementary school won an award and got her pictured in the local newspaper. She remained involved in art classes through high school, but sought no further formal art education until later in life.

After attending a watercolor class with her mother at the Walter Anderson Museum in Ocean Springs in 2007, she rediscovered her passion for painting. Despite having limited time due to her full-time career in education, she started attending workshops and retreats to learn as much as she could. Johnnie Lillidahl’s Art of Illumination video series introduced Diane to the world of classical realism painting, where she grew to love and be inspired by the works and methods of masters such as John W. Waterhouse, Rembrandt, Bouguereau, and Ingres. The methods she learned from those videos are a major influence on the painting process she still uses today, which includes using value, glazing, and scumbling of color to create depth and invite the viewer into the world of the painting.

After retiring from full-time employment, Diane was able to spend more time taking art classes, studying at the New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts, Abbey Art Works, and with Magtilt Van Theil. Since then, she has been featured in and won awards at group shows with the Singing River Art Association, the Ocean Springs Art Association, and the Mobile Art Association. She was also invited to be a member of Gallery 782 in Biloxi, where she held her first solo show in February, 2023.

Focusing primarily on oil paintings, but also creating with watercolors, pastels, and charcoal, Diane works from her home studio in Vancleave, Mississippi, where she is currently interested in capturing figures in their natural environments, showing life in moments unaware, and studying the nuances of light in the classical realism tradition.